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(⏰ Sunday, 3 p.m. ET | USA Network | NBC Sports App | PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)

Weekend schedule | TV schedule | Weather tracker | NASCAR 101

Location: Atlanta Motor Speedway, Hampton, Ga.
Track length: 1.54 miles
Race purse: $7,801,384
Race distance: 260 laps | 400.4 miles
Stages: 60 | 160 | 260
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Starting lineup: Michael McDowell surges to pole position
Pit stall assignments: See where drivers will pit
Defending winner: William Byron, July 2023

Key things to watch

Saturday sessions

Michael McDowell roared to his second straight Atlanta Motor Speedway pole with a fast final-round lap of 179.267 mph in the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford. The 39-year-old driver went his first 466 Cup Series races without a pole position; now he has a harvest of five poles in his last 25 races.

Ford swept the top-five starting spots, with Kyle Larson in the fastest Chevrolet in sixth. Ty Gibbs mustered the fastest lap among Toyota drivers but will start 20th. Denny Hamlin qualified last, well off the pace in the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. He said later that his team was investigating a powertrain issue. | Full Saturday recap

Big story line

Fortunes of three drivers shift in an Atlanta blink

The last time the NASCAR Cup Series visited Atlanta Motor Speedway, the first three cars that crossed the start-finish line abreast at the checkered flag were separated by just 0.007 seconds. For the three drivers who pressed toward that micron-close finish, their fates took multiple twists between that February stop and Sunday’s return trip that opens the 10-race Cup Series Playoffs.

Daniel Suárez’s No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet was the first car there as the Mexican-born driver secured his second Cup Series win, snapping up a postseason berth in the process. By the time he reached Wednesday’s Cup Series Playoffs Media Day, Suárez said he’d already seen the replay of the three-wide conclusion several times that morning, reaffirming the enduring link that he’ll have with that moment.

“People love talking about it,” Suárez said. “I think it was a great finish, and obviously something that people are going to talk about for a very, very long time every time that we go back to Atlanta. It’s going to be in the history books, and I’m just very happy that I was the one that won it, because if not, if I was Blaney or Busch, I would feel very bad about it.”

That’s Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch, who were the other competitors in contention, falling short by just a whisker. Blaney’s No. 12 Team Penske Ford was 0.003 seconds behind at the checkers, and it took the defending Cup Series champ nearly five months to make his playoff return official with a breakthrough win at Iowa Speedway. Contrary to what Suárez thought, Blaney didn’t “feel very bad,” and he enters Atlanta with four of his 12 Cup Series victories coming on superspeedway-style tracks.

“I didn‘t feel upset about it,” said Blaney, who also has his two Team Penske teammates (Joey Logano and Austin Cindric) in the playoff mix as well. “It was pretty wild and I kind of put in my head like, ‘I‘ve won them by that much, too.’ So, the fact that I lost one by half a foot, I can‘t really be mad about it. I‘ve won more than my fair share of what I honestly should have won, just by odds, by a foot or two. It was just a neat finish. I didn‘t know who won. … Like I said, that‘s like the only time I wasn‘t upset about running second at all. It was like, ‘Oh, we didn‘t win. Well, that was still a good night.\"”

The driver 0.007 seconds behind was Busch, who languished through a dreadful summer slump before making two valiant late bids to make the playoff field. He ended up outside the postseason picture, with two runner-up finishes behind first-time 2024 winners Harrison Burton (Daytona) and Chase Briscoe (Darlington) to close the regular season.

He said seeing replays of the Atlanta photo finish still stings somewhat, and that his goals for the final 10 races of the season are twofold — extending his streak of seasons with a win to 20 consecutive years, and playing playoff spoiler from the outside looking in.

“Just another weekend, another race, nothing really,” Busch said, noting that with the nature of superspeedway events, “anything can happen in those styles of races. So we’ve been strong at them this year, though, like Daytona, Talladega and Atlanta, so that gives you some optimism — added optimism maybe, more than, say, what I was used to for years of just dreading these places. So we’ll just see if we can’t score a win here this time.”

History tells us…

Manufacturers make their Atlanta moves. Since Atlanta Motor Speedway was reconfigured to an intermediate-sized track with higher banking in 2022, prompting a shift to superspeedway-style rules, Chevrolet drivers have won four of the five races. Three of those have been snatched up by Hendrick Motorsports drivers — with William Byron prevailing twice, and home-state favorite Chase Elliott once.

Despite those high marks on the results sheet, Ford flexed its muscle in Saturday’s Busch Pole Qualifying with seven Mustang Dark Horses among the top 10. It’s the seventh consecutive superspeedway-style event with a Ford on the pole.

He may not be the betting favorite to win, but watch out for…

AUSTIN CINDRIC. Since Atlanta’s reinvention, Cindric has been sneaky consistent with the third-best average finish here (12.4) in the Cup Series field. He’s led multiple laps in the last four Atlanta races and had a prime seat for February’s photo finish in fourth place.

The Team Penske driver starts fifth in Sunday’s 400-miler and sets off as an 18-1 pick. He broke a two-plus-year skid with his June victory at Gateway, but his only other Cup Series win was at a superspeedway in the 2022 Daytona 500. | Atlanta odds

Speed reads

Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles.

• Compelling playoff topics: Five thought-starters as postseason dawns | Read article
• Title defense sets sail: Ryan Blaney rides confidence into Atlanta | Read article
• Sensing a shake-up: Larson counting on unpredictability | Read article
• 2025 reunion: Truex says Cole Pearn would be crew chief for potential Daytona 500 bid | Read article
• Bubble Watch: High risk, reward abound for postseason hopefuls | Photo gallery
• ‘Rare opportunity’: Playoff underdogs embracing the moment | Read article
• What they’re saying: Best driver quotes from Cup Series Playoffs Media Day | Photo gallery
• Penske’s pit-stop mix: From shark-attack survivor to playoffs, Joe Dilly blends with veteran crew | Read article
• Playoff programming: NASCAR Studios launches three new shows | Read article
• Get in the game: Join the Cup Series Playoffs Grid Challenge | How to play
• Computer modeling: Results of 10,000 simulations of title battle | Read article
• Power Rankings: Paring down our list to the sweet 16 | Photo gallery
• Tier mentality: Categories, designations for all 16 playoff drivers | Photo gallery
• Turning Point: Potential spoilers, favorites saddle up for Atlanta | Read article
• NASCAR Betting: Wait-and-see approach to championship odds | Read article
• Racing Insights: Full finishing order projections for Sunday’s playoff opener | Read article
• 36 for 36: Check out this week’s survivor pool picks | Read article
• Fantasy Fastlane: Turning to Team Penske for Atlanta lineup | Photo gallery
• Memorable moments: Races for the history books from Atlanta | Photo gallery
• Atlanta all-timers: Full list of Cup Series race winners | Photo gallery
• NASCAR Classics: Rewind with three Atlanta all-timers from the vault | Read article
• Paint Scheme Preview: Fresh designs for Atlanta playoff opener | Pick your favorite

Fast facts ⏩

Race-relevant statistics, brought to you by the experts at Racing Insights.

• The last two Cup Series winners at Atlanta started 18th or worse; the previous two were both pole winners.
• The pole winner has also become the race winner just once this season, back when William Byron prevailed at Circuit of The Americas in March.
• February’s Atlanta event registered a track record of 48 lead changes, besting the previous mark of 46 in the spring of 2022.